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Alpine Linux
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Reader supplied reviews for Alpine Linux
Average rating
9.0 from 30 review(s)
Version: 3.18.3
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-09-12
Votes: 14
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Security focused. Lightweight. Lightweight dependencies. Very stable. Not for new users. Choice of init system, all pros.
Alpine is used in many containers, so actual use is much larger because of Docker.
apt is the best rep tool I've ever used, and I have used RPM, YAST, YUM, Apt-get, emerge, and portage to name a few.
The edge repo has all the latest software and tools.
The installer could be a little better, and the minimal root file system could be a little more complete.
Alpine makes setting up a wifi router/firewall dirt simple on a small embedded computer like a nanoPi or Pi zeroW.
The last time I was this impressed was back when Ubuntu was on version 7 or 8, back when the LTS was rock solid stable. I had just encountered rpm hell with Fedora and decided if the package manager was this bad, I wanted out. When the Precise release came out and was so buggy, I switched to debian, and when debian went to systemd, I went to devuan, but wasn't really satisfied, so tried Antix, but conman was broken on multiple releases, so I eventually tried Alpine and haven't looked back yet.
The only downfall of Alpine (which makes it secure) is that it is musl based, so I run chroots of debian to use glibc based applications. It's pretty simple using debootstrap to build a chroot. It also isolates glibc applications in a chroot. I've personally experienced the bloat, insanity, and bugginess that comes with glibc. Look for the 8,000 line patch made by a Red Hat developer to glibc to fix an overlapped memcpy in an Adobe flash player. I found it because it caused a 24x slowdown in one of our memcpy functions.
It would be nice to see more musl based distros and applications.
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Version: 3.18.3
Rating: 8
Date: 2023-09-11
Votes: 1
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Nice overall distribution. Simple in ideology and execution.
For me personally the issue is with the musl libs. You simply can't get all of the apps that you need and will often find yourself struggling with missing libraries which are not present in the musl library collection. Personally I use Signal on daily basis and it's simply not available via the musl libraries due to some missing lib dependencies. This can extend to many other apps depending on what you are using it could be a deal breaker.
So I would recommend researching your "must have" apps availability in the musl ecosystem before diving into this head first cause you might find that there are limitations there.
Void linux for example solves this by offering both a libc and musl versions of their distro, it would be nice if Alpine did the same. But that's just my take on things.
Overall tho it's a pretty nonsense-free distribution and if you don't mind some of the musl shortcomings then I'm sure you'll appreciate it's simplicity and stability.
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Version: 3.18.2
Rating: 8
Date: 2023-07-30
Votes: 11
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-1 star for LXQT for not being anything remotely ready for primetime. Buggy, incomplete, problematic. That was day 1. Installing XFCE was a gigantic relief because that would assemble and was a nifty, complete implementation.
-1 for closing their email list ("new registration no longer accepted") to people that want to join their community. Mastadon/IM just seems like a poor alternative since many of us don't want to IM.
Other than that, great adventure. I had to raise my modest skill level to make this work. It's a skeleton CLI operating with no DE, a few degrees separated from Linux From Scratch, and you are in the complete control. I loved it. If forces you to really think about what you are installing. You enable your own services.
You can read all the comments on here, or all the internet reviews, and they are all torn on one thing. Half the people believe this is just a Server distro and the other half think it's a Complete Desktop experience. I wanted a secure Daily Driver and I got one. Was it meant for this? I don't know yet.
Kudos to their fantastic and easy documentation. Problems will come up in configuring as you go, and all of mine could be remedied quickly with their information.
This has no bells and whistles or flash outside of what xfce4 offers, and if you want bells and whistles, Alpine will be happy if you go back to Ubuntu. I respect this. Alpine is very much a mindset.
I eschewed their own awall for ufw, and had to install iptables, but that's part of the fun. I pick and choose. OpenRC is fast fast fast.
I have 5 of their repos enabled and it's a modest offering with firefox and chromium the only GUI browsers really. When there are about 6-7 vim/keyboard browsers curated that should tell you something.....:) All my favorite CLI tools are there. And it supports Flatpak so I really have to be conservative in my approach but I love the option.
I like Alpine and I'm sticking with it. I wrote this on day 4 of using Alpine daily.
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Version: 3.18.0
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-05-12
Votes: 113
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Very nice! It isn't as bloated as most other distributions, it's package manager is nice, and it's a good experience, with good security also.
It isn't without downsides though. It suffers the same issue as Void Linux (poor distro-specific documentation), and the package base is small. This forces you to sometimes manually compile things, which is often fine and also educational, but it sometimes causes headaches. There's also a heavy reliance on Flatpaks for many things.
Also, here's a tip: If you use flatpaks on here, and also use pulseaudio, use "pulseaudio --start && flatpak run [thing]" to run the aforementioned flatpaks.
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Version: 3.17.3
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-04-26
Votes: 61
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Alpine is an Ethical, Safe, Secure, Stable, Fast, Fun and well thought out system.
I'm using it as a base operating system on a couple laptops for various programming and research projects.
The main reason I pursued using Alpine is world class security.
Having musl, a custom busybox (less suid, static links), the small foot print (in this case, less is better),
the ability to dismiss any drivers and configure the system as I see fit, sold me.
Are you tired of titanic sized, insecure systemd bloatware, "convenience model" systems leaving you open to
all sorts of attacks, built by wanna-be hackers?
then;
Use Alpine, it's solved those issues and more for me.
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Version: 3.17.3
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-04-04
Votes: 45
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An Alpine JWM desktop can start with ~30mb memory usage.
Minimalism and extending the lifespan of a computer is my kind of hobby :o)
For me Alpine is the ideal distro for x86 32bit hardware with a desktop.
I managed smoothly streaming video's with Alpine and JWM as desktop
under 64 MB. X and JWM start up here with a total mem usage of ~30mb.
With wifi and the DRM driver blacklisted (and all DRM drivers removed in the
initramfs too to even be able to boot). Bare and stable. No bloat installed.
When Alpine v3.15+ turned towards DRM-only-drivers it became too big
and slow for 64mb. There was a too big regression in performance and
choices. So now I run v3.17.3 with the kernel from v3.14.10. Compiling the
kernel yourself is an option, but on this machine it means endless swapping
and days or even weeks of waiting ...... :o(
End of Alpine v3.14.10 is may 2023. I hope for 25 years of prolonged
sequrity updates for this version :o)
Void has no 32bit musl version.
Alpine 3.17.3 also runs on my "Multi Media Center for a Raspberry PI zero"
without the above kernel change. The X and a JWM desktop start with a
memory consumption of 41 mb (the mb's for wifi and barrier and the mrxvt
terminal to type "free" are hereby included).
GTK+2.0 is still present in the repos and DIY builds for GTK+2.0 give an
enormous powerboost. GTK+3.0 became far too heavy. No standard
webbrowser will run nicely on a rpi0 because of the also heavy javascript.
Netsurf GTK+2.0 is the (beautiful!) only one that still shows some
erformance here. But with the help of the Alpine repos streaming iptv
& ipradio is well possible with smooth running DIY grafical menu's. The
grafical chip of the RPI0/1 is a nice one and Alpine performs well here.
The APKBUILD of Alpine do not differ much from the PKGBUILD from Arch.
APKBUILD's might even be a little bit more streamlined :o)
My Fear: Is Alpine also going to bloat itself, just like the other distro's?
Indeed Windows 98 also ran on 64mb. So it seems clear that progression, in
general, means a big regression on the memory and performance side. With
far too much unnessecary material waste as a result.
All in all. Alpine is a wonderfull and very special distro!
Big thanks for Alpine that it could realize what (all?) others can't achieve in
today's memory consumption and ease.
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Version: 3.17.2
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-02-27
Votes: 14
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Alpine is a very good, multi functional Linux system.
Installation process is extremely fast and easy. After installation, completing system setup and creating xfce4 desktop took me only one hour. Adding other system and application packages were very easy and fast as well.
In about less than two hours I had my system up and running with all the packages (nothing more, nothing less) I liked to have on my system. Alpine gave me a freedom that I did not have in many other Linux distros I tried before.
I had web browser, graphics and media applications, libreoffice-calc all active on my desktop and the amount of memory used was only 1.4GB. Alpine never wastes system resources. It is fast and effective.
If you are a person with little Linux experience, do not shy away from Alpine. Its documentation base is extremely useful to help you create your system easily, quickly with the way you like.
Alpine package manager apk, is the fastest package manager I have ever used. Each software package also has its documentation package separately listed (i.e. man pages).
I have been enjoying using and experimenting with Alpine on my system with no issues so far. Alpine is a quiet achiever. Go for it!..
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Version: 3.17.1
Rating: 9
Date: 2023-02-09
Votes: 8
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I set out to check "Build a Router" off my bucket-list. I've setup Linux distros on my home machines for more than 20 years now. I prefer Fedora for my desktop for "reasons", but Fedora server really failed me here. Between systemd-resolved, network manager, and dnsmasq, taking my amateur, basic networking skills to the next level just was NOT happening. There is FAR too much going on there.
The Alpine Linux "sys" install onto a drive is a classic, minimal Linux installation WITHOUT systemd or network manager. It was/is the best approach I could find to learn the interoperability between iptables/nftables, dnsmasq, and hostapd. Nothing seemed to work until I discovered some iptables bits on a Ubuntu forum that finally enabled comms between my LAN, WLAN, and the internet. (I did a lot of reading - books even. But all the books are old too, and describe iptables and BIND in great detail.)
As of 3.17, I found the iptables package pretty much "broken" out-of-the-box, along with dnsmasq. The dnsmasq service sets up a bridge on 10.0.x.x behind your back AND a firewall with iptables rules. The iptables package wouldn't open up my traffic with some very, very basic FORWARD rules for my subnets. nftables saved the day, but the default nftables.conf also breaks a basic home router table. I'm sure none of that makes sense. OH, and the "net.ipv4.ip_forward" bit wasn't set by default. But nftables was easy to fix. The dnsmasq service file had to be pared down to a regular service that depends on "firewall". And the nftables package provides that. Basically all of the networking HOWTOs on the Alpine wiki are old and just don't work now.
Setting up Samba for a NAS was the easy part! That HOWTO is a winner.
It's a mixed bag, but I'll take it!
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Version: 3.17.1
Rating: 9
Date: 2023-01-26
Votes: 7
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This is a neat little distro.
The install is pretty easy actually. I you read the manual, it's not hard to set up a desktop environment even though that is not Alpines main niche.
The package manager seems to be good and have an understandable syntax.
It's fast, has a small footprint, is independent and free from systemd. What more could you ask for?
It's perfect for a user like me who have basic needs and mainly read email and browse the web.
I'll refrain from giving it a 10 because there is no perfect distro, but a 9 for sure.
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Version: 3.16.2
Rating: 9
Date: 2022-09-17
Votes: 27
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Mainly 20 years with Linux, tried different distro. Used Arch for long time.
Alpine is really KISS. Package management is fast, easy and reliable.
Easy to secure distro.
I've used it at first on Raspberry Pi for making a nano server for self hosting my website and my email with postfix. Now alpine is also on my main PC. Great as server OS and great for desktop for those who like minimalism. For the main PC, i'm using the edge version as it is stable and rolling...
Alpine is fast, lightweight and very pleasant.
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Version: 3.16.2
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-09-08
Votes: 19
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Alpine is the BEST and most underrated Linux distro.
Very long-time (and still love) Slackware guy, do some admin, including some live CentOS web / blog servers, tried many distros over the years.
I stumbled into Alpine because I was looking to mess with and learn virtualization. I saw Alpine Xen recommended, and I was impressed by the small download size.
Fell in love at first login. Nothing bad to say. Many utilities link to BusyBox, but you can easily install the real one if you need the full functionality.
The only negatives, and these are mild, are:
1) "Midori" web browser just would not even run.
2) some other quirks with GUI, but I'm building CLI servers, so GUI is secondary. AND, I did not try other windowing systems, so there's more to be tried in the X / GUI department.
3) It's based on musl libraries, not glibc. I'm not expert enough to know the pros and cons, but it works. The main con: AFAIK, you can't run glibc-linked binaries- you have to get the musl version, or compile it yourself. All that said, I find every package I could want is available in Alpine repositories. (I do coding and compiling, so that wouldn't be a problem if needed).
4) From the start I've felt strongly that good package management is critical to any Linux distro. Alpine's apk works very well, but I would prefer more functionality, and maybe a GUI front-end.
Alpine is not advertised as "rolling release", but every time they've come out with a new version, apk has no problem upgrading everything correctly, no problems. So if you're looking for rolling release (very important to me), consider Alpine as being functionally rolling release.
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Version: 3.16.2
Rating: 9
Date: 2022-09-01
Votes: 22
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One of the rare small systems for general aarch64. I installed it in UTM on Macbok Air M1 and use it with the XFCE4 desktop for daily using the web.
Alpinelinux is very small, stable and fast. I installed it in a few minutes as "system" on a hdd. The tutorials are easy to follow and work without problems.
I like it. It is independent and a very good alternative to the heavy weight *buntus. I don't need a full featured system, prepared for all needs. I searched for a small internet machine and Alpine fits this very good.
i got the XFCE4 desktop without unneeded stuff, clean and fast. I only need a browser and a terminal.
For system updates just use:
# apk update
# apk ugrade
Done.
It is really worth trying.
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Version: 3.16.0
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-06-11
Votes: 35
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/*
The most sane distro available as of 2022.
Minimal, efficient, secure, simple, stable -- these are all words that come to mind when describing Alpine Linux.
Compared to Void Linux, Alpine is smaller, more secure, stable, and actively maintained, though both distros are excellent choices.
I look forward to a future when Alpine has its own s6-based init system (in development), though in the mean time I am happy with OpenRC.
If you want a truly minimal linux distro that does everything you want but nothing more, look no further.
*/
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Version: 3.16.0
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-05-25
Votes: 25
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Gave Alpine a try today and I am in LOVE! Man, this thing is super easy to get on with and is very versatile -- from simple server running just syncthing to full desktop workstation with xfce (my pref), just be sure to enable the repos.
I've been a long time Void user and will continue to use it as my daily driver. Alpine will be for servers and very possibly my HTPC since the repo has everything i need.
musl is snappy, that's a huge compliment coming from an avid Void user.
Fantastic distro. Finally gave it a try, very impressed.
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Version: 3.15.0
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-02-23
Votes: 65
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Alpine Linux is pretty small and secure, it's a great and minimalistic Operating System offering an absolute perfect base for Docker images. Currently the Alpine-Linux Docker base image has about 6 megabytes on the Docker Registry.
It is based on musl as it's standard C library and Busybox which is a software suite which provides several standard tools in one executable file, especially created for low footprint operating systems.
I build Docker Images by myself so I can tell about the difference having an about thirty megabyte image where other comparable images occupy a few hundred megabytes on your harddisk by having absolutely no benefits compared to Alpine-Based images. It's exactly the opposite, as it's pretty secure by the position-independent execution technique which randomizes the position of running applications in memory and therefore minimizes attack vectors and preventing buffer overflows with it's stack smasching protection additionally.
It has apk (not to be confused with Android APKs) as it's package manager which is lean and fast and doesn't lack of any features, at least for myself. Some packages aren't available in the distribution though but I never missed anything special.
Even I just use it on console, you can install a x-windows system as Alpine supports several window managers.
The distribution and it's packages are actively maintained.
My conclusion: a small memory footprint, it's security features and no unnecessary packages installed makes it my absolute favorite Linux distribution.
This is a fire-and-forget, I just love it!
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Version: 3.15.0
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-02-14
Votes: 43
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truly a K.I.S.S. distro which gets the job done. It can be a solid workstation as well if you love flatpaks
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Version: 3.15.0
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-02-08
Votes: 39
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Undoubtedly my go-to linux distro for anything server based, within-reason. Since it is musl-based, there are some limitations on what binaries will run. (or compile if you roll your own packages on this platform.) It works exceedingly well as a server and the resource consumption is ridiculously smaller compared to just about everything else out there.
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Version: 3.15.0
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-01-27
Votes: 25
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Tried it out for the first time: it was the easiest console installation processed I've ever used. Big plus was it supported encryption and even Btrfs with one environment variable.
The installation finishes really quickly and is super lightweight in terms of boot time, RAM usage, and packages. No systemd cruft. I started using this for a personal server.
Its package manager has also been really solid and easy to use.
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Version: 3.15.0
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-01-01
Votes: 32
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Underrated. Good rate for this distro is 9.5
It is compact, fast and stable.
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Version: 3.15.0
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-11-30
Votes: 54
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Alpine has been a fast, stable and secure distro for me. It’s a small distro and lightweight too. There are multiple uses for this distro like for a server, for Raspberry Pi, etc. The documentation is great as well. I recommend Alpine.
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Version: 3.14.2
Rating: 9
Date: 2021-09-29
Votes: 46
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Alpine Linux is the only Linux distribution that fits in my head. It's extremely minimal yet fast and secure, and doesn't use bloat libraries like glibc or systemd. An unfortunate result of this is that many proprietary applications simply will not work on Alpine.
apk is by far the fastest package manager, faster than even pacman with parallel downloads.
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Version: 3.13.5
Rating: 8
Date: 2021-05-28
Votes: 75
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Alpine worked out of the box on an old Kohjinsha SA1F00 UMPC running an AMD Geode CPU.
Pros - This little UMPC only has a 30GB disk and Alpine is taking next to nothing. Super fast, lightweight, setup was quick and easy.
Cons - couldn't detect the Winbond onboard wifi controller, had to purchase a $9 Panda wireless USB dongle from Amazon (which DID work right out of the gate). Also, wireless was not part of the initial install, had to do that separately, but that might be because it didn't detect the onboard card.
Running now for a week with no issues, decided against running in graphical mode due to small disk and RAM - was able to get BOINC running along with cmatrix as a terminal screensaver, so it's happily sitting on a corner of the desk churning away.
Originally was in the same camp as another reviewer about a dearth of packages, then discovered the "edge" repository, and OMG there's a boatload of them available.
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Version: 3.13.5
Rating: 5
Date: 2021-05-08
Votes: 0
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this distro works- chromium works ,apache ok but sound cards - no ...
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Version: 3.13.5
Rating: 1
Date: 2021-04-18
Votes: 1
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Bugs reported 5 years ago are still there...
Installation is failing on mirrors, and packages that are missing (like syslinux, etc..)
These and other bugs have been reported in their forums 5 years ago. Admins are asking for tips and solutions from the applicants and the public..
it's a ridiculous system that won't start, is buggy and totally complicated.
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Version: 3.13.3
Rating: 8
Date: 2021-03-29
Votes: 44
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This distro is probably best for servers or Docker containers because it is very light. It's easy to install and when it's installed you get to build out your system, so there arent any useless programs that you're never going to use. You get to choose what you want on your system.
Also the Alpine package manager is pretty fast but there aren't as many packages.
If you want a web server or even a simple desktop environment alpine linux is going to be more than enough.
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Version: 3.13.1
Rating: 9
Date: 2021-01-29
Votes: 43
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The base system is amazing and rock stable. The package manager is the best I've tried. It just lacks a bit of application support to iron out some glitches and make more packages available.
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Version: 3.13.0
Rating: 9
Date: 2021-01-26
Votes: 40
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Great community.
Great set of packages
Awesome documentation.
Fast
Runs on a wide variety of h/w
I find this distribution very flexible for creating hosts for a wide variety
of uses/functions.
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Version: 3.13.0
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-01-14
Votes: 46
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Not only for routers, been using Alpine as my desktop system and it WORKS, it's simple, secure and the core packages are minimal.
What makes Alpine different from other distributions:
Userland: Busybox
Shell: Busybox's ash
Libc: musl libc
SSL: Libressl
init: OpenRC
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Version: 3.12.3
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-01-11
Votes: 31
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Great for all uses. I use it for desktop, server, and raspberry pi.
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Version: 3.12.3
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-01-09
Votes: 35
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Alpine Linux is different. It can be extreme small and fit in several roles (SOC, embedded, router, server and workstation, etc). It has a very clean and easy to use package system. It does not use Systemd - which is a big plus for very small systems. The documentation is good enough and up to date. Not much to complain. Give it a try!
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Latest Reviews
Project: Alpine Linux
Version: 3.18.3
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-09-12
Votes: 14
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Security focused. Lightweight. Lightweight dependencies. Very stable. Not for new users. Choice of init system, all pros.
Alpine is used in many containers, so actual use is much larger because of Docker.
apt is the best rep tool I've ever used, and I have used RPM, YAST, YUM, Apt-get, emerge, and portage to name a few.
The edge repo has all the latest software and tools.
The installer could be a little better, and the minimal root file system could be a little more complete.
Alpine makes setting up a wifi router/firewall dirt simple on a small embedded computer like a nanoPi or Pi zeroW.
The last time I was this impressed was back when Ubuntu was on version 7 or 8, back when the LTS was rock solid stable. I had just encountered rpm hell with Fedora and decided if the package manager was this bad, I wanted out. When the Precise release came out and was so buggy, I switched to debian, and when debian went to systemd, I went to devuan, but wasn't really satisfied, so tried Antix, but conman was broken on multiple releases, so I eventually tried Alpine and haven't looked back yet.
The only downfall of Alpine (which makes it secure) is that it is musl based, so I run chroots of debian to use glibc based applications. It's pretty simple using debootstrap to build a chroot. It also isolates glibc applications in a chroot. I've personally experienced the bloat, insanity, and bugginess that comes with glibc. Look for the 8,000 line patch made by a Red Hat developer to glibc to fix an overlapped memcpy in an Adobe flash player. I found it because it caused a 24x slowdown in one of our memcpy functions.
It would be nice to see more musl based distros and applications.
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Project: Alpine Linux
Version: 3.18.3
Rating: 8
Date: 2023-09-11
Votes: 1
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Nice overall distribution. Simple in ideology and execution.
For me personally the issue is with the musl libs. You simply can't get all of the apps that you need and will often find yourself struggling with missing libraries which are not present in the musl library collection. Personally I use Signal on daily basis and it's simply not available via the musl libraries due to some missing lib dependencies. This can extend to many other apps depending on what you are using it could be a deal breaker.
So I would recommend researching your "must have" apps availability in the musl ecosystem before diving into this head first cause you might find that there are limitations there.
Void linux for example solves this by offering both a libc and musl versions of their distro, it would be nice if Alpine did the same. But that's just my take on things.
Overall tho it's a pretty nonsense-free distribution and if you don't mind some of the musl shortcomings then I'm sure you'll appreciate it's simplicity and stability.
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Project: Alpine Linux
Version: 3.18.2
Rating: 8
Date: 2023-07-30
Votes: 11
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-1 star for LXQT for not being anything remotely ready for primetime. Buggy, incomplete, problematic. That was day 1. Installing XFCE was a gigantic relief because that would assemble and was a nifty, complete implementation.
-1 for closing their email list ("new registration no longer accepted") to people that want to join their community. Mastadon/IM just seems like a poor alternative since many of us don't want to IM.
Other than that, great adventure. I had to raise my modest skill level to make this work. It's a skeleton CLI operating with no DE, a few degrees separated from Linux From Scratch, and you are in the complete control. I loved it. If forces you to really think about what you are installing. You enable your own services.
You can read all the comments on here, or all the internet reviews, and they are all torn on one thing. Half the people believe this is just a Server distro and the other half think it's a Complete Desktop experience. I wanted a secure Daily Driver and I got one. Was it meant for this? I don't know yet.
Kudos to their fantastic and easy documentation. Problems will come up in configuring as you go, and all of mine could be remedied quickly with their information.
This has no bells and whistles or flash outside of what xfce4 offers, and if you want bells and whistles, Alpine will be happy if you go back to Ubuntu. I respect this. Alpine is very much a mindset.
I eschewed their own awall for ufw, and had to install iptables, but that's part of the fun. I pick and choose. OpenRC is fast fast fast.
I have 5 of their repos enabled and it's a modest offering with firefox and chromium the only GUI browsers really. When there are about 6-7 vim/keyboard browsers curated that should tell you something.....:) All my favorite CLI tools are there. And it supports Flatpak so I really have to be conservative in my approach but I love the option.
I like Alpine and I'm sticking with it. I wrote this on day 4 of using Alpine daily.
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Project: Alpine Linux
Version: 3.18.0
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-05-12
Votes: 113
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Very nice! It isn't as bloated as most other distributions, it's package manager is nice, and it's a good experience, with good security also.
It isn't without downsides though. It suffers the same issue as Void Linux (poor distro-specific documentation), and the package base is small. This forces you to sometimes manually compile things, which is often fine and also educational, but it sometimes causes headaches. There's also a heavy reliance on Flatpaks for many things.
Also, here's a tip: If you use flatpaks on here, and also use pulseaudio, use "pulseaudio --start && flatpak run [thing]" to run the aforementioned flatpaks.
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Project: Alpine Linux
Version: 3.17.3
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-04-26
Votes: 61
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Alpine is an Ethical, Safe, Secure, Stable, Fast, Fun and well thought out system.
I'm using it as a base operating system on a couple laptops for various programming and research projects.
The main reason I pursued using Alpine is world class security.
Having musl, a custom busybox (less suid, static links), the small foot print (in this case, less is better),
the ability to dismiss any drivers and configure the system as I see fit, sold me.
Are you tired of titanic sized, insecure systemd bloatware, "convenience model" systems leaving you open to
all sorts of attacks, built by wanna-be hackers?
then;
Use Alpine, it's solved those issues and more for me.
|
Project: Alpine Linux
Version: 3.17.3
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-04-04
Votes: 45
|
An Alpine JWM desktop can start with ~30mb memory usage.
Minimalism and extending the lifespan of a computer is my kind of hobby :o)
For me Alpine is the ideal distro for x86 32bit hardware with a desktop.
I managed smoothly streaming video's with Alpine and JWM as desktop
under 64 MB. X and JWM start up here with a total mem usage of ~30mb.
With wifi and the DRM driver blacklisted (and all DRM drivers removed in the
initramfs too to even be able to boot). Bare and stable. No bloat installed.
When Alpine v3.15+ turned towards DRM-only-drivers it became too big
and slow for 64mb. There was a too big regression in performance and
choices. So now I run v3.17.3 with the kernel from v3.14.10. Compiling the
kernel yourself is an option, but on this machine it means endless swapping
and days or even weeks of waiting ...... :o(
End of Alpine v3.14.10 is may 2023. I hope for 25 years of prolonged
sequrity updates for this version :o)
Void has no 32bit musl version.
Alpine 3.17.3 also runs on my "Multi Media Center for a Raspberry PI zero"
without the above kernel change. The X and a JWM desktop start with a
memory consumption of 41 mb (the mb's for wifi and barrier and the mrxvt
terminal to type "free" are hereby included).
GTK+2.0 is still present in the repos and DIY builds for GTK+2.0 give an
enormous powerboost. GTK+3.0 became far too heavy. No standard
webbrowser will run nicely on a rpi0 because of the also heavy javascript.
Netsurf GTK+2.0 is the (beautiful!) only one that still shows some
erformance here. But with the help of the Alpine repos streaming iptv
& ipradio is well possible with smooth running DIY grafical menu's. The
grafical chip of the RPI0/1 is a nice one and Alpine performs well here.
The APKBUILD of Alpine do not differ much from the PKGBUILD from Arch.
APKBUILD's might even be a little bit more streamlined :o)
My Fear: Is Alpine also going to bloat itself, just like the other distro's?
Indeed Windows 98 also ran on 64mb. So it seems clear that progression, in
general, means a big regression on the memory and performance side. With
far too much unnessecary material waste as a result.
All in all. Alpine is a wonderfull and very special distro!
Big thanks for Alpine that it could realize what (all?) others can't achieve in
today's memory consumption and ease.
|
Project: Alpine Linux
Version: 3.17.2
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-02-27
Votes: 14
|
Alpine is a very good, multi functional Linux system.
Installation process is extremely fast and easy. After installation, completing system setup and creating xfce4 desktop took me only one hour. Adding other system and application packages were very easy and fast as well.
In about less than two hours I had my system up and running with all the packages (nothing more, nothing less) I liked to have on my system. Alpine gave me a freedom that I did not have in many other Linux distros I tried before.
I had web browser, graphics and media applications, libreoffice-calc all active on my desktop and the amount of memory used was only 1.4GB. Alpine never wastes system resources. It is fast and effective.
If you are a person with little Linux experience, do not shy away from Alpine. Its documentation base is extremely useful to help you create your system easily, quickly with the way you like.
Alpine package manager apk, is the fastest package manager I have ever used. Each software package also has its documentation package separately listed (i.e. man pages).
I have been enjoying using and experimenting with Alpine on my system with no issues so far. Alpine is a quiet achiever. Go for it!..
|
Project: Alpine Linux
Version: 3.17.1
Rating: 9
Date: 2023-02-09
Votes: 8
|
I set out to check "Build a Router" off my bucket-list. I've setup Linux distros on my home machines for more than 20 years now. I prefer Fedora for my desktop for "reasons", but Fedora server really failed me here. Between systemd-resolved, network manager, and dnsmasq, taking my amateur, basic networking skills to the next level just was NOT happening. There is FAR too much going on there.
The Alpine Linux "sys" install onto a drive is a classic, minimal Linux installation WITHOUT systemd or network manager. It was/is the best approach I could find to learn the interoperability between iptables/nftables, dnsmasq, and hostapd. Nothing seemed to work until I discovered some iptables bits on a Ubuntu forum that finally enabled comms between my LAN, WLAN, and the internet. (I did a lot of reading - books even. But all the books are old too, and describe iptables and BIND in great detail.)
As of 3.17, I found the iptables package pretty much "broken" out-of-the-box, along with dnsmasq. The dnsmasq service sets up a bridge on 10.0.x.x behind your back AND a firewall with iptables rules. The iptables package wouldn't open up my traffic with some very, very basic FORWARD rules for my subnets. nftables saved the day, but the default nftables.conf also breaks a basic home router table. I'm sure none of that makes sense. OH, and the "net.ipv4.ip_forward" bit wasn't set by default. But nftables was easy to fix. The dnsmasq service file had to be pared down to a regular service that depends on "firewall". And the nftables package provides that. Basically all of the networking HOWTOs on the Alpine wiki are old and just don't work now.
Setting up Samba for a NAS was the easy part! That HOWTO is a winner.
It's a mixed bag, but I'll take it!
|
Project: Alpine Linux
Version: 3.17.1
Rating: 9
Date: 2023-01-26
Votes: 7
|
This is a neat little distro.
The install is pretty easy actually. I you read the manual, it's not hard to set up a desktop environment even though that is not Alpines main niche.
The package manager seems to be good and have an understandable syntax.
It's fast, has a small footprint, is independent and free from systemd. What more could you ask for?
It's perfect for a user like me who have basic needs and mainly read email and browse the web.
I'll refrain from giving it a 10 because there is no perfect distro, but a 9 for sure.
|
Project: Alpine Linux
Version: 3.16.2
Rating: 9
Date: 2022-09-17
Votes: 27
|
Mainly 20 years with Linux, tried different distro. Used Arch for long time.
Alpine is really KISS. Package management is fast, easy and reliable.
Easy to secure distro.
I've used it at first on Raspberry Pi for making a nano server for self hosting my website and my email with postfix. Now alpine is also on my main PC. Great as server OS and great for desktop for those who like minimalism. For the main PC, i'm using the edge version as it is stable and rolling...
Alpine is fast, lightweight and very pleasant.
|
Project: Alpine Linux
Version: 3.16.2
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-09-08
Votes: 19
|
Alpine is the BEST and most underrated Linux distro.
Very long-time (and still love) Slackware guy, do some admin, including some live CentOS web / blog servers, tried many distros over the years.
I stumbled into Alpine because I was looking to mess with and learn virtualization. I saw Alpine Xen recommended, and I was impressed by the small download size.
Fell in love at first login. Nothing bad to say. Many utilities link to BusyBox, but you can easily install the real one if you need the full functionality.
The only negatives, and these are mild, are:
1) "Midori" web browser just would not even run.
2) some other quirks with GUI, but I'm building CLI servers, so GUI is secondary. AND, I did not try other windowing systems, so there's more to be tried in the X / GUI department.
3) It's based on musl libraries, not glibc. I'm not expert enough to know the pros and cons, but it works. The main con: AFAIK, you can't run glibc-linked binaries- you have to get the musl version, or compile it yourself. All that said, I find every package I could want is available in Alpine repositories. (I do coding and compiling, so that wouldn't be a problem if needed).
4) From the start I've felt strongly that good package management is critical to any Linux distro. Alpine's apk works very well, but I would prefer more functionality, and maybe a GUI front-end.
Alpine is not advertised as "rolling release", but every time they've come out with a new version, apk has no problem upgrading everything correctly, no problems. So if you're looking for rolling release (very important to me), consider Alpine as being functionally rolling release.
|
Project: Alpine Linux
Version: 3.16.2
Rating: 9
Date: 2022-09-01
Votes: 22
|
One of the rare small systems for general aarch64. I installed it in UTM on Macbok Air M1 and use it with the XFCE4 desktop for daily using the web.
Alpinelinux is very small, stable and fast. I installed it in a few minutes as "system" on a hdd. The tutorials are easy to follow and work without problems.
I like it. It is independent and a very good alternative to the heavy weight *buntus. I don't need a full featured system, prepared for all needs. I searched for a small internet machine and Alpine fits this very good.
i got the XFCE4 desktop without unneeded stuff, clean and fast. I only need a browser and a terminal.
For system updates just use:
# apk update
# apk ugrade
Done.
It is really worth trying.
|
Project: Alpine Linux
Version: 3.16.0
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-06-11
Votes: 35
|
/*
The most sane distro available as of 2022.
Minimal, efficient, secure, simple, stable -- these are all words that come to mind when describing Alpine Linux.
Compared to Void Linux, Alpine is smaller, more secure, stable, and actively maintained, though both distros are excellent choices.
I look forward to a future when Alpine has its own s6-based init system (in development), though in the mean time I am happy with OpenRC.
If you want a truly minimal linux distro that does everything you want but nothing more, look no further.
*/
|
Project: Alpine Linux
Version: 3.16.0
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-05-25
Votes: 25
|
Gave Alpine a try today and I am in LOVE! Man, this thing is super easy to get on with and is very versatile -- from simple server running just syncthing to full desktop workstation with xfce (my pref), just be sure to enable the repos.
I've been a long time Void user and will continue to use it as my daily driver. Alpine will be for servers and very possibly my HTPC since the repo has everything i need.
musl is snappy, that's a huge compliment coming from an avid Void user.
Fantastic distro. Finally gave it a try, very impressed.
|
Project: Alpine Linux
Version: 3.15.0
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-02-23
Votes: 65
|
Alpine Linux is pretty small and secure, it's a great and minimalistic Operating System offering an absolute perfect base for Docker images. Currently the Alpine-Linux Docker base image has about 6 megabytes on the Docker Registry.
It is based on musl as it's standard C library and Busybox which is a software suite which provides several standard tools in one executable file, especially created for low footprint operating systems.
I build Docker Images by myself so I can tell about the difference having an about thirty megabyte image where other comparable images occupy a few hundred megabytes on your harddisk by having absolutely no benefits compared to Alpine-Based images. It's exactly the opposite, as it's pretty secure by the position-independent execution technique which randomizes the position of running applications in memory and therefore minimizes attack vectors and preventing buffer overflows with it's stack smasching protection additionally.
It has apk (not to be confused with Android APKs) as it's package manager which is lean and fast and doesn't lack of any features, at least for myself. Some packages aren't available in the distribution though but I never missed anything special.
Even I just use it on console, you can install a x-windows system as Alpine supports several window managers.
The distribution and it's packages are actively maintained.
My conclusion: a small memory footprint, it's security features and no unnecessary packages installed makes it my absolute favorite Linux distribution.
This is a fire-and-forget, I just love it!
|
Project: Alpine Linux
Version: 3.15.0
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-02-14
Votes: 43
|
truly a K.I.S.S. distro which gets the job done. It can be a solid workstation as well if you love flatpaks
|
Project: Alpine Linux
Version: 3.15.0
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-02-08
Votes: 39
|
Undoubtedly my go-to linux distro for anything server based, within-reason. Since it is musl-based, there are some limitations on what binaries will run. (or compile if you roll your own packages on this platform.) It works exceedingly well as a server and the resource consumption is ridiculously smaller compared to just about everything else out there.
|
Project: Alpine Linux
Version: 3.15.0
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-01-27
Votes: 25
|
Tried it out for the first time: it was the easiest console installation processed I've ever used. Big plus was it supported encryption and even Btrfs with one environment variable.
The installation finishes really quickly and is super lightweight in terms of boot time, RAM usage, and packages. No systemd cruft. I started using this for a personal server.
Its package manager has also been really solid and easy to use.
|
Project: Alpine Linux
Version: 3.15.0
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-01-01
Votes: 32
|
Underrated. Good rate for this distro is 9.5
It is compact, fast and stable.
|
Project: Alpine Linux
Version: 3.15.0
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-11-30
Votes: 54
|
Alpine has been a fast, stable and secure distro for me. It’s a small distro and lightweight too. There are multiple uses for this distro like for a server, for Raspberry Pi, etc. The documentation is great as well. I recommend Alpine.
|
Project: Alpine Linux
Version: 3.14.2
Rating: 9
Date: 2021-09-29
Votes: 46
|
Alpine Linux is the only Linux distribution that fits in my head. It's extremely minimal yet fast and secure, and doesn't use bloat libraries like glibc or systemd. An unfortunate result of this is that many proprietary applications simply will not work on Alpine.
apk is by far the fastest package manager, faster than even pacman with parallel downloads.
|
Project: Alpine Linux
Version: 3.13.5
Rating: 8
Date: 2021-05-28
Votes: 75
|
Alpine worked out of the box on an old Kohjinsha SA1F00 UMPC running an AMD Geode CPU.
Pros - This little UMPC only has a 30GB disk and Alpine is taking next to nothing. Super fast, lightweight, setup was quick and easy.
Cons - couldn't detect the Winbond onboard wifi controller, had to purchase a $9 Panda wireless USB dongle from Amazon (which DID work right out of the gate). Also, wireless was not part of the initial install, had to do that separately, but that might be because it didn't detect the onboard card.
Running now for a week with no issues, decided against running in graphical mode due to small disk and RAM - was able to get BOINC running along with cmatrix as a terminal screensaver, so it's happily sitting on a corner of the desk churning away.
Originally was in the same camp as another reviewer about a dearth of packages, then discovered the "edge" repository, and OMG there's a boatload of them available.
|
Project: Alpine Linux
Version: 3.13.5
Rating: 5
Date: 2021-05-08
Votes: 0
|
this distro works- chromium works ,apache ok but sound cards - no ...
|
Project: Alpine Linux
Version: 3.13.5
Rating: 1
Date: 2021-04-18
Votes: 1
|
Bugs reported 5 years ago are still there...
Installation is failing on mirrors, and packages that are missing (like syslinux, etc..)
These and other bugs have been reported in their forums 5 years ago. Admins are asking for tips and solutions from the applicants and the public..
it's a ridiculous system that won't start, is buggy and totally complicated.
|
Project: Alpine Linux
Version: 3.13.3
Rating: 8
Date: 2021-03-29
Votes: 44
|
This distro is probably best for servers or Docker containers because it is very light. It's easy to install and when it's installed you get to build out your system, so there arent any useless programs that you're never going to use. You get to choose what you want on your system.
Also the Alpine package manager is pretty fast but there aren't as many packages.
If you want a web server or even a simple desktop environment alpine linux is going to be more than enough.
|
Project: Alpine Linux
Version: 3.13.1
Rating: 9
Date: 2021-01-29
Votes: 43
|
The base system is amazing and rock stable. The package manager is the best I've tried. It just lacks a bit of application support to iron out some glitches and make more packages available.
|
Project: Alpine Linux
Version: 3.13.0
Rating: 9
Date: 2021-01-26
Votes: 40
|
Great community.
Great set of packages
Awesome documentation.
Fast
Runs on a wide variety of h/w
I find this distribution very flexible for creating hosts for a wide variety
of uses/functions.
|
Project: Alpine Linux
Version: 3.13.0
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-01-14
Votes: 46
|
Not only for routers, been using Alpine as my desktop system and it WORKS, it's simple, secure and the core packages are minimal.
What makes Alpine different from other distributions:
Userland: Busybox
Shell: Busybox's ash
Libc: musl libc
SSL: Libressl
init: OpenRC
|
Project: Alpine Linux
Version: 3.12.3
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-01-11
Votes: 31
|
Great for all uses. I use it for desktop, server, and raspberry pi.
|
Project: Alpine Linux
Version: 3.12.3
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-01-09
Votes: 35
|
Alpine Linux is different. It can be extreme small and fit in several roles (SOC, embedded, router, server and workstation, etc). It has a very clean and easy to use package system. It does not use Systemd - which is a big plus for very small systems. The documentation is good enough and up to date. Not much to complain. Give it a try!
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